28 September 2012

Alert Over Ageing Hornets as Structural Fatigue Hits Fleet

THE Royal
Australian Air Force has been warned to scale back the use of its ageing fleet
of F/A-18 "classic" Hornet fighters to avert structural fatigue
concerns.

The 71
fighter jets, brought into service in the mid-1980s, may need to keep flying
beyond 2020 because of delays in acquiring the new Joint Strike Fighter, the
Australian National Audit Office said yesterday.

It warned to
expect a big increase in annual maintenance costs of the old Hornet fleet from
$118 million since 2001 to $170m today, with costs expected to blow out to
$214m a year by 2018. The report found all but nine of the Hornet fleet had
"experienced structure fatigue above that expected for the airframe
hours".

The ANAO's
upkeep concerns are directed at the "classic" Hornets and not the
newer fleet of 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets delivered to RAAF Amberley between 2010
and last year.

"The
key risks to the F/A-18 fleets' fulfilment of their operational requirements
until their replacement by the F-35A Lightning (JSF) revolve around Defence's
ability to maintain the present levels of Hornet sustainment and
structural-integrity management," the report said.

It "may
well require the fleet to undergo an expanded, and hence more costly,
safety-by-inspection regime, structural modifications program and capability
upgrades".

The
government has indicated it will buy 100 new Lockheed Martin-built F-35 Joint
Strike Fighters, to replace the Hornet fleet in a deal worth $13.2 billion.

So far, it
has committed to buy only two JSFs and in May announced plans to defer for two
years the next acquisition of 12 of the stealthy, multi-role strike aircraft.

The audit
report noted problems with the JSF program, including that it was progressing
"more slowly and at greater cost than first estimated".

"At the
time of the audit, almost 80 per cent of the F-35 test and evaluation program
was yet to be completed, so significant F-35 key performance parameters had not
been fully validated," the report warned.

Latest 2012
price estimates for individual JSF war planes were $US131.4m ($126.2m),
projected to fall slightly next year and reach $US83.4m in 2019 when aircraft
production is scheduled to increase.

RAAF's first
two JSFs are scheduled for delivery in 2014 and will remain in the US for
flight tests and evaluation.

Australia is
one of nine partner nations involved in the JSF program, which has delivered
more than $300m in contracts to Australian aerospace suppliers.

To bridge a
looming capability gap following the retirement of the 1970s vintage F-111
fighter-bombers, the Howard government ordered 24 F/A-18F Super Hornets --
themselves due to be replaced by the F-35 (JSF) Lightnings by 2025.

On a plus
note, the ANAO said recent initiatives to improve performance of the JSF
program "are starting to show results".